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New trial denied for kidnapper

Posted: Wednesday, November 30, 2005

A Clarke County Superior Court judge has denied a motion seeking a new trial for a 24-year-old Athens woman serving a life sentence for kidnapping and robbing a University of Georgia student nearly four years ago.

Bambi Wright was sentenced to life in prison in January 2004 after a jury found her guilty of kidnapping with bodily harm, aggravated assault and related charges for the abduction of the 22-year-old student from the parking lot of a downtown bank.

Wright's boyfriend and co-defendant, Ferris Ellsworth Grady Jr., avoided trial by pleading guilty to the lesser charge of kidnapping in a negotiated agreement in which he received a 14-year prison sentence.

According to police, on the night of March 9, 2002, Wright talked her way into the 22-year-old UGA student's car in the parking lot of First American Bank on College Avenue by asking for a ride, and Grady got into the back seat and held a knife to the student's throat, ordering her to drive to a dead-end road.

The victim, who escaped with a superficial cut on her throat, told police Grady choked her while Wright tied her hands with rope, and they made off with credit cards, $165 in cash, eyeglasses and car keys.

In asking for a new trial, Wright's attorney argued, among other things, the jury that convicted his client was tainted by prejudicial testimony and misled by prosecutors during plea negotiations.

Gerald Brown argued that jurors might have prejudged Wright when a police officer testified she "elected to remain silent" after the officer read her the Miranda rights. He cited a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that disallowed such testimony.

In rejecting the motion for a new trial, Judge Steve Jones quoted from trial transcripts, which he showed the officer inadvertently told jurors he had advised Wright of her right to remain silent, and that the prosecutor told the judge he hadn't anticipated the testimony.

In his ruling on Monday, Jones wrote that he had given the jury a "curative instruction" to disregard the officer's testimony, and that when he asked if the jurors couldn't follow his instruction, none raised their hand.

Brown also argued that prosecutors misled his client while the two sides tried to work out a plea deal, telling her she could be sentenced to a determined number of years, but after trial they said she could only get a life sentence.

Jones rejected the argument, stating even if Wright had been misled, he was bound by law to impose a life sentence for the crime of kidnapping with bodily injury.